Diagnosis of the socio-economic potential of health insurance

The article analyzes the regulatory framework in the insurance market in connection with the advent of Big Data, such as information collected from different sources that can be manipulated by new technologies. The use of Big Data offers significant opportunities to the insurance companies in terms of digitization of the distribution channels and greater knowledge of the customers, which is instrumental to a more effective identification of the individual’s risk profile, as well as improvement of the competitiveness. However, regulatory measures are needed for a proper use of Big Data in terms of respect of the individual privacy, potential discrimination and constraint on competition.

Financial imbalance is the reason of a macroeconomic instability. This study aims at identifying the institutional causes of financial markets imbalance. The authors consider that financial intermediaries in Ukraine work in a speculative market segment carrying out high-risk transactions with the purpose of earning a huge profit. In fact, in Ukraine the role of these institutions in the investment process financing is insignificant. The authors show that soundness of banks along with the ease of access to loans and a low level of confidence in national banking system are the main reasons of instability in financial market in Ukraine. Due to scarcity of financial capacity and refusal to carry out transactions in a high-risk market segments, insurance companies are unable to entirely perform functions of risk redistribution. Competitiveness of Ukrainian financial market remains low with a limited financial services nomenclature and it may be considered to be attractive for potential foreign investors.

Insurance companies are institutions of public trust, and this affects their corporate culture, strategies and management systems. One of the image concerns is reporting on socially responsible actions in non-financial reports. The prime objective of the research presented in this paper is to analyze the dependence between the level of non-financial reporting in the insurance market and the share of foreign capital, measured based on the market size of foreign insurance companies compared to all insurance companies, and the share of foreign insurance companies in non-financial reporting. The study concerned insurance markets in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, and the overall market of the Visegrad Group countries. The theoretical section provides a review of the literature and applicable legislation to indicate the causes of non-financial reporting by insurance companies. Next, the correlation was used to determine the relationship between the variables studied, the regression method was applied to determine the impact of the variables studied, in particular foreign capital, on the level of non-financial reporting. A model was constructed, and the results of its estimation were analyzed. Analysis of the data demonstrated that the greater the share of foreign capital, the higher the level of non-financial reporting. The study results indicate that the share of foreign insurance companies can become a determinant in the development of non-financial reporting.